a. I saw a sick and miserable looking boy standing at the corner of the street.
b. I saw a sick and miserable-looking boy standing at the corner of the street.
The question is whether in (a) or in (b) 'looking' could modify 'sick'.
In other words, was the boy
1. miserable-looking and sick
or
2. sick-looking and miserable-looking
I think the hyphen in (b) might be considered an indication that 'looking' only modifies 'miserable'. But I think in practice such a 'rule' would not be considered a rule and one would have to rely on context to know what is going on.
Many thanks.
miserable looking
Moderator: Alan
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Re: miserable looking
To clearly indicate that both 'sick' and 'miserable' submodify 'looking', we would write as follows:
I saw a sick- and miserable-looking boy standing at the corner of the street.
Naturally, in spoken form there would be some ambiguity.
I saw a sick- and miserable-looking boy standing at the corner of the street.
Naturally, in spoken form there would be some ambiguity.